Gabriel Basso explores family and friendship in Kings of Summer'

Gabriel Basso took up acting on a lark and almost immediately began landing one major role after another.

On the big screen, he starred alongside John Goodman in “Alabama Moon” and Elle Fanning in J.J. Abrams’ “Super 8.” And on the small screen, he played Laura Linney’s son in the Showtime series “The Big C,” which recently wrapped up its fourth and final season.

But as much pleasure as Basso has gotten from performing, he’d leave it all behind for a gig as a soccer player.

“If I could play for a professional team, I would (give up acting),” says Basso, who is heading to Europe this summer for try-outs after he graduates from high-school.

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“I’ve played soccer for the last 14 years of my life. I’ve been training so hard to make it. So, I really want to pursue it. It’s my first love.”

It was Basso’s athleticism which helped make him an ideal candidate to play Patrick in “Kings of Summer,” a coming-of-age comedy about three pals (Basso, Nick Robinson, Moises Arias) who decide to run away from home and spend their summer building a house in the woods.

The friends forage for food, hunt and, eventually, invite a female classmate (Erin Moriarty) into their secret clubhouse. The boys’ relationship is tested when the young woman develops feelings for Basso instead of Robinson, who has a crush on her.

Basso says he was excited about the script as soon as he cracked it open. “I liked everything about it,” he recalls. “You only come across these scripts once in a lifetime. Rarely do scripts make me laugh out loud but this one had me rolling.”

At his audition, Basso impressed director Jordan Vogt-Roberts and screenwriter Chris Galletta by ad-libbing a few lines here and there.

“He had some riffs in his audition that I thought were so funny that I put them in the script,” Galletta recalls.

“Kings of Summer” was shot last year in the town of Chagrin Falls, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. Before the cameras rolled, Vogt-Roberts sent Robinson, Basso and Arias to improvisational acting classes in hopes of loosening them up a bit.

“Those classes also helped us build a little chemistry between the three of us,” says Basso. “It was fun.”

The film’s locations include sprawling meadows and an evergreen forest but the most crucial setting is the home built by the pals. While the actors didn’t actually build the structure, they did have a hand in pulling it down.

The actors were filmed deconstructing the house, and that footage was used during a montage in which the young men appear to be building it.

For Basso, the biggest challenge was keeping a straight face during his scenes with Mullally and Jackson, who improvised most of their takes.

“Megan and Mark are probably two of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life,” says Basso. “And there they were across from me, just riffing for hours.”

During a dinner table sequence, Basso scarfed down burger after burger just to keep from breaking up.

“The director was, like, ‘Gabe, keep a straight face because you’re supposed to be mad.’ It was horrible,” he says with a laugh. “The food was horrible too but that’s how funny Megan and Mark were. I was willing to eat four or five burgers in order not to laugh.”

Basso believes at the heart of “Kings of Summer” is a message about the importance of friendship and family during adolescence when most teenagers are struggling to figure out the ways of the world.

“Patrick is a normal guy,” says Basso. “He’s conflicted because his parents are insane and he wants to escape. But he knows deep down, I think, that his folks are doing things in his best interest. They’re just going about it the wrong way.

“I think he moves out in the woods to get away from his parents but also to protect (his friends). He feels responsible for them … I think the film is about love, respect and family.”

Even though Basso has filmmaking in his blood -- his great uncle was the late Hollywood director Sam Wood (“Pride of the Yankees,” “A Night At The Opera”) -- the actor never gave a thought to performing until his sisters Alexandria and Annalise got bit by the acting bug.

In 2008, his mother and sisters moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles to further the girls’ careers. Gabriel stayed back in Missouri with his father. But during a visit to L.A. he found an agent, and quickly booked a lead role in the pilot “Ghost Town.”

“I really fell into acting but after doing a couple of things I thought, ‘Wow, this has really brought a lot into my life maybe I should stick with it.’ And I’ve continued acting.”

Were his sisters jealous that it all came so easily to him?

“Well, we have a great support system but I do think I rubbed it in a little bit,” he says. “We have that sibling competition.”

Basso, who will be soon seen in another coming of age dramedy called “Anatomy of the Tide,” counts his work on “The Big C” as a career highlight. Through the last three seasons, he’s worked closely alongside Laura Linney, Oliver Platt, Gabourey Sidibe, Hugh Dancy and Idris Elba.

“I learned so much on that show,” says Basso. “The people involved were amazing. I feel like I walked away with a family. I consider them to be close friends now.”

His bond with Linney, in particular, made the finale bittersweet. “It was definitely emotional working on the last season,” says Basso. “Not only is the content, in essence, emotional but I also knew that it would be the last time that I’d be working with Laura on the show.

“So, it was a very emotional experience and I’m not an emotional guy. But it really meant something to me.”